Category: International News

A 35-year-old Ghanaian Rubbin Sarpong, 35 has been arrested for his
involvement in $2.1m Romance fraud in the United States of America
(USA).

The suspect who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted is reported
to have in concert with others scammed over 30 victims identified so
far as 27 sent more than $823,000 to him mainly by wiring money to his
bank accounts. He transferred more than $454,000 to co-conspirators in
Ghana.

One of his victims is reported to have committed suicide after sending more than $93,000, according to investigators.

Sarpong who flaunts dollar bills at the least opportunity was on
Wednesday charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud
and will have a first court appearance on Wednesday afternoon.

Sarpong and his co-conspirators, several of whom live in Ghana, ran the scheme starting in January 2016 until this week.

They set up phony profiles on various online dating sites posing as
U.S. military personnel and would pretend to forge romantic
relationships with their victims, authorities said.

In one of the scenarios, the scammers would then ask for money to ship
gold bars they had recovered while stationed in Syria back to the United
States, authorities said.

There were no gold bars and the scammers kept the money, authorities said.

The victims, who met the scammers via sites including Plenty of Fish,
Ourtime.com and Match.com, communicated with the scammers via phone and
email.

The criminal complaint references a victim who committed suicide after wiring $93,710.

The scammer in this case told her he was a soldier serving in Syria and
that he was awarded a box of gold bars worth more than $12 million.
What followed was an elaborate story about how she could help get the
gold to the U.S. by paying various fees and taxes. She was told her
money would be returned once the gold arrived.

Nigerians have descended heavily on UK-based Ghanaian gospel artist
Sonnie Badu for xenophobic comments he shared on social media against
the people of Nigeria.

Sonnie Badu in a Facebook post claimed Nigerians have attacked and
robbed some Chinese and whites all in the name of retaliation.

He stated that Nigerians are attacking their fellow Nigerians and
believes that such an act will not solve the attacks in South Africa in
any way.

However, some Nigerians who felt offended about Sonnie Badu comments criticized him for spreading lies about their country.

They rained insults on him and asked him to verify his fact before spreading false stories;

See the comments below;

Kingsley Iserhienrhien had this to say; “Sonnie am not surprised ? you
sharing what you heard without facts. You Ghanaians do maltreat
Nigerians in your own country, you guys are not different from SA. Am
talking out of experience but you, you heard. Ghanaians are nursing such
hatred towards Nigerians in your neighborhood”.

Uchechukwu Okoronkwo also wrote; “Badu has acted irresponsibly. You
don’t share what you hear…you confirm it first. FYI no foreigner has
been attacked in Nigeria”.

Rosemond Idun commented; “Where was Sonnie Badu when The South Africans
were attacking the Nigerians. Sometimes I don’t want to understand some
of these hypocrites”.

Andre Ayew says his full focus is on performing well for Swansea City after his match-winning brace against Northampton.

The Ghanaian made his first Swans appearance in 15 months when he was
summoned from the bench in the Carabao Cup clash with the Cobblers.

The 29-year-old did not take long to make an impact as his two headers –
his first Swansea goals in over three years – helped Steve Cooper’s men
turn around the first-round tie and set-up a home assignment against
Cambridge United in the next round.

Ayew recently returned to training after being on African Cup of Nations
duty during the summer, and head coach Cooper has acknowledged the
forward could yet leave the club with a number of transfer markets still
open.

But, as long as he remains a Swansea player, Ayew has vowed to do as
much as he can to help Cooper and co build on their unbeaten start to
the season

“I’m a Swansea player and I am working hard for the games that are
coming up. The gaffer has been clear and honest with me and I want to
thank him for that,” he said.

“He’s given me a lot of confidence and trust in the way that he speaks
to me. I really feel like I’m welcome and that’s a good feeling.

“A lot of things have been said but, for me, what’s important is to work
hard, try to get to full fitness and, if I’m here, go for it.”

Ayew also thanked the Swans fans for the reception he received on
Tuesday night, with his name ringing round the Liberty after his goals.

“The fans gave me an unbelievable welcome. I’m so happy and touched and
that sort of thing makes you want to work hard,” he said.

“They have always been great with me and supporting me. That’s why, so
long as I’m in a Swansea shirt, I try to give everything I have for the
club. I just want to do my best on the field for everyone.”

Sex plays an important role in our social lives. Apart from procreation,
it brings to the participating individuals emotional and physical
fulfilment required to keep them hale and hearty. A good sex life is
believed to bring to the individual benefits such as lower blood
pressure, reduced stress, improved mood, enhanced immune function,
general fitness among others.

Sexuality, the way people express themselves sexually, is a subject
which arouses diverse opinions in Ghana. This is because, the Ghanaian,
traditionally, recognizes heterosexual relationships as the accepted
form of sexuality. Homosexual relationships, though abhorred by the
greater populace, is creeping into the Ghanaian society. Regardless the
sexual orientation of an individual, sexual satisfaction remains the
ultimate goal.

Prisons in Ghana house only adults, making it easy to assert that most
incarcerated persons are sexually active. Among the many deprivations
prisoners in Ghana endure is sex, as prison rules disallow all forms of
sexual acts. Additionally, prison regulations make no provision for
conjugal visits which permit spouses of incarcerated persons to spend
intimate moments with their partners. Some prisoners, in the
circumstance, resort to same-sex relationships to feed their sexual
cravings.

How effective is the ‘no sex’ regulation?

Ghana, like other jurisdictions, house male and female prisoners in
different facilities preventing any contact between the two sexes.

To alleviate the pains of imprisonment, some prisoners risk the
consequences and engage in sexual acts as asserted in Erving Goffman’s
1969 work, ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’. He posited that,
inmates may have to adjust their sexual practices while incarcerated by
engaging in illegal methods in order to obtain certain forms of
satisfaction.

The issue of same-sex relationships in our prisons is gradually becoming
topical as prisons mirror the wider society. There have even been
claims by some ex-convicts to the effect that same-sex relationships and
rape exist in our facilities. Though most of these claims are blown out
of proportion, there are certain levels of truth in them. An incident
at the Ankaful Maximum Security Prison in June 2016 where a male
prisoner slashed the penis of another prisoner who attempted to rape him
paints a picture of how the act is viewed by a majority of prisoners.
The practice, nicknamed ‘Kpee’, is treated as a taboo throughout Ghana’s
prisons. That notwithstanding, there are few instances where prisoners
report attempted rape by fellow prisoners to prison staff. These reports
are swiftly investigated and appropriate sanctions handed to sex
predators.

Who is at risk of being preyed on?

A number of inmates who have suffered sexual harassment in our jails are
from poor homes and or receive little or no family support during their
jail terms. Prison ration, which mostly is insufficient, becomes their
only means of survival.

The overcrowding rate in our facilities stand at 52.87% with 15,203
prisoners struggling for 9,945 spaces. This gives little room for prison
administrators to do a proper classification of inmates to either
prevent contamination or limit the exposure of low risk prisoners to
hardened ones. First offenders who find themselves in same cells as
powerful recidivists are sometimes coerced to trade their bodies for
sleeping spaces.

Challenges faced in the area of feeding still exist. The feeding rate
of GH 1.80 per prisoner daily has stagnated for close to a decade making
it almost impossible to provide three wholesome meals. The quest to
keep body and soul together in some circumstances result in poor
prisoners kowtowing to the pressures of their rich colleagues. Affluent
prisoners in search of sexual gratification sometimes resort to these
weaklings as the provision of food and other necessities, sometimes, is
more than enough to lure them into same-sex relationships.

Prison staff mostly have difficulty in detecting these relationships
since most sex offenders employ coercive and non-violent tactics to win
over partners. Additionally, prisoners often underreport overtures for
fear of being labeled as informants or becoming subjects of physical
abuse.

Are conjugal visits the way to go?

In looking for a solution to the emerging scourge of sexual
relationships behind bars, conjugal visits come to mind. The system,
which runs in some prisons around the world, permits prisoners to host
their spouses in specially built quarters for specific periods. The key
to these special quarters, in most cases, is good conduct. Apart from
the emotional and physical need of sex that the system presents, prison
authorities use it as a bait to enforce prisoner discipline.

Ghana’s prison system in my estimation, is still some miles away from being ripe for such an intervention.

Deficiencies as regards feeding, overcrowding, inadequate reformation
and rehabilitation modules and others that the Service currently endures
need to be given needed attention as they together possess, though
indirectly, an antidote to fighting sex predators.

The fact is, if prisons are not resourced to correct the offending
behaviours of prisoners, they are sure to return to haunt society. This
confirms the saying of Marquis de Sade, a French author, that “any
punishment that does not correct is a piece of gratuitous infamy which
makes those who impose it more guilty in the eyes of humanity, a hundred
times more guilty than the victim on whom the punishment is inflicted.”

A statement signed by Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, on
Wednesday said in view of the day falling on a Sunday, the President,
has by Executive Instrument (EI), declared Monday, August 5, as a public
holiday “to be observed as such throughout the country.”

The Founders’ Day was instituted by the President by Executive
Instrument to commemorate the contributions to the liberation of Ghana
from imperialism and colonialism.

It replaced September 21, the birthday of Ghana’s founding president,
Kwame Nkrumah, which used to be observed as the commemorative day for
Ghana’s liberation and independence fighters.

However, September 21 will be observed as ‘Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day’.

August 4

On that day, in 1897, the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS) was formed in Cape Coast.

The Society did a great job to mobilise the chiefs and people to ward
off the greedy hands of British imperialism to ensure that control of
Ghanaian lands remained in Ghanaian hands.

It represented the first monumental step towards the making of modern
Ghana, enabling us to avoid the quagmire of land inheritance that our
brothers and sisters in Southern and Eastern Africa continue to suffer,
from the seizures of their lands by white minorities

It is, therefore, fitting that we honour them, as those who
contributed to the founding of our nation, a statement issued by the
Presidency on September 18, 2018, indicated.

The statement signed by Communications Director, Eugene Arhin noted:
“The most appropriate way to honour them is to commemorate the day on
which the two most significant events in our colonial political history,
that led us to independence, occurred – 4th August.”

Energy expert Kojo Opoku says the blame for the failure of due diligence
to be done over the concession agreement between government and Power
Distribution Services (PDS) Ghana Limited must be laid at the doorstep
of the Minister of Finance and not any other.

He says it took a Qatari company to alert government of the fraudulent documents tendered in by PDS to win the bid.

No due diligence was done, he stressed on 3FM‘s Hot Edition on Wednesday.

Government in a statement on Tuesday suspended the whole agreement after it said further due diligence was conducted.

Fundamental and material breaches were detected with the demand
guarantees that enabled PDS to manage the assets of the Electricity
Company of Ghana (ECG).

Already, Energy Minister John Peter-Amewu has confirmed the suspension of the official behind the “fraudulent documents”.

Private Legal Practitioner and founder of the Legal Advocacy Foundation,
Dr Maurice Ampaw has called for the arrest of Archbishop Dag Heward
Mills, the founder of Lighthouse Chapel International for the latter’s
endorsement of oral sex, MyNewsGh.com reports.

According to the lawyer, the popular preacher is “abnormal, perverted
and not a right-thinking member of society” and so must be “delivered
and arrested” for endorsing criminality.

In 2015, the Archbishop Dag Heward-Mills told his congregation in a
sermon that, “I don’t think there is anything wrong with oral sex
because there is no red flag on any part of the body. Which law [states]
that this place is not good; you can kiss here, but you cannot lick
here because kissing is licking”, adomonline.com reported.

Bishop Heward-Mills, who was addressing church members, could not
fathom why couples restrict areas they touch during foreplay when in
fact other places can also contribute to making the sex more enjoyable.

It is against this backdrop that Dr Ampaw argues that the famed miracle-working pastor must be confined behind bars.

Speaking in an interview on Kumasi-based Angel FM monitored by
MyNewsGh.com, Dr Ampaw said, “every pastor that promotes oral sex is
abnormal, antichrist, is not a right-thinking member of society, is a
perverted minister of God, and so he should be delivered and then
arrested, because he’s against God’s own principle of sexual
intercourse”.

Maurice Ampaw has in recent days begun an advocacy against oral sex,
condemning the practice and shedding light on its legal implications in
Ghana.

He has branded people who put their mouth on the genitalia of their
significant others as “foolish” and has encouraged people to report any
such “obscene” practices to the police to effect arrest when they come
across any.

Though Bishop Heward-Mills said oral sex is a “holy and good thing”,
Maurice Ampaw believes the preacher must have been “swallowed by
promiscuity” to have such thoughts.

He has challenged the Archbishop to meet him in court if he is offended by his opinion of him.

“It is a legal opinion I have expressed and it’s biblical; quote me and
tell him I said this and if he thinks that I have spoken in a way that
he’s unhappy with, he should take me on”, but “he even fears to do that
because I will disgrace him and he might quit the priesthood”, Maurice
Ampaw told Kwame Tanko, host of Angel In The Morning last Friday.

3news.com has gathered that government suspended the concession
agreement with Power Distribution Services (PDS) after discovering that
the person it had been dealing with was a fraudster.

It is now emerging that the officer who executed the Demand Guarantees
(Lease Payment Security and BSA Payment Security) submitted by PDS was
not authorized.

PDS was supposed to manage the operations of the Electricity Company of
Ghana (ECG) for 20 years starting from Friday, March 1, 2019.

But government was forced to suspend the agreement with immediate effect
as a precautionary measure, 3news.com understands, having realized the
element of fraud in the transfer of ECG’s assets and management to PDS.

When authenticated, it could lead to the nullification of the entire ECG concession agreement.

Sources close to the deal told 3news.com this major development came to
light following a series of due diligence tests the guarantees were
subjected to by the ECG.

In the course of ECG investigations, a commercial insurer and reinsurer,
Al Koot, which is based in Qatar wrote a letter to ECG dated 16th July,
2019 claiming among other things, that the officer who executed the
Guarantees from Al Koot was not authorized and that the guarantees are
null and void.

The letter also accused the officer of committing fraud.

A number of meetings were subsequently held between government and
stakeholders on July 28 culminating into the suspension of the
concession agreement on July 30.

Meanwhile, a government delegation is expected to travel to Qatar on
Wednesday July 31, 2019 to meet with officials from Al Koot in order to
verify the information specifically on the fraud aspect.

Government has also assured that it is taking steps to ensure the
development does not affect distribution, billing and payment services.

The Minority in Parliament is demanding an immediate reversal in the new taxes announced by the Finance Minister Monday.

Ken
Ofori-Atta in his 2019 mid-year budget review proposed an increment in
Energy Sector levies and the Communication Service Tax.

Mr Ofori-Atta wants Parliament to approve a GHp 20 per litre for petrol and diesel and GHp 8 per kg for LPG.This pushes the prices of petrol and diesel up by some GHp 90 per gallon.

He also proposed a 3% increment in the Communication Services Tax, from 6% to 9%.

The
Minority, who had prior to the budget presentation warned against any
such increments, have criticised government for refusing to heed to
their caution.

“If
these increases (petrol, diesel and LPG) create frustration and
Ghanaians wish to vent through phone calls or on social media, the
Mid-year budget has made that expensive as well, following the
imposition of a 50% increase in the Communication Service Tax from 6% to
9%.

“These
measures will send shock waves through many households and businesses
as this will only further compound the excruciating hardships Ghanaians
are already going through,” Minority Spokesperson on Finance Ato Forson
said at a press conference Tuesday.

In
his view, the increments will add on to a raft of taxes imposed by
President Akufo-Addo despite his promise not to do so in opposition,
some of which he claimed to include a 5% backdoor increase in VAT
couched as NHIL and GETFund Levies.

Borrowing

The
NDC MPs have accused government of “cosmetically” posting a positive
primary balance for two consecutive years at a time when the public debt
has ballooned.

Mr
Ato Forson is projecting that based on what he describes as
government’s appetite for borrowing, the public debt could reach some
¢220 billion by the end of the year, representing 65% of GDP.

“This
would mean that in three years, President Akufo-Addo would have added
GHS 100 billion to the public debt. We wish to stress that this only
represents what has been added since 2017. In all, President Akufo-Addo
has borrowed about ¢160 billion (not what is added to the public debt)
since 2017 with part of it used for debt reprofiling.

“The
public debt would exceed the projected ¢220 billion, once draw-down
begins for a number of loans approved by Parliament. This rapid increase
in the public debt level means that we have reached a point of debt
unsustainability, a fact confirmed by the World Bank Country Director,”
he added.

This
development, the Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam MP, indicated, is at variance with
what the President and his party told the people of Ghana in
opposition.

They created the impression that they could govern the country without borrowing and

that even if they borrowed at all, the funds would solely be channeled into capital investments, he said.

“After
adding ¢84 billion to the public debt, President Akufo-Addo cannot
point to any significant capital investments made over the last three
years. Almost all of the borrowed funds have gone into consumption
related expenditure.”

For
the Minority, the mid-year budget shows clearly the public finance is
in a dire state and the resort to additional tax measures is an
indication for what they believe are troubling times ahead.

The
populist policies adopted by President Akufo-Addo, in their view, have
come full cycle and are throwing all the gains made from the fiscal
consolidation prior to the coming into office of the NPP government, out
of gear.

“It
has become obvious that the NPP has no intention of keeping their
promises to Ghanaians when it comes to borrowing and the public debt,
the imposition taxes, fuel price adjustments and the resolution of the
general hardships facing the people.

“The
mid-year budget presented by the Finance Minister only offers gloom and
portend very difficult times for all Ghanaians. There is, therefore,
the need for the Akufo-Addo government to change course or they will
plunge the economy into much bigger challenges,” Mr Forson said.

The government of Ghana said it felt vindicated when the NMC ruled to
sustain the state’s argument that the Joy News documentary Militia in
the Heart of the Nation had a misleading advertisement.

The commission claimed the use of a background that showed the
worrying activities of militia groups in the country was unethical. Joy
News has contested the ruling.But while the government claims
vindication, there are questions about sanctions for those who allowed
the commander Nana Wireko Addo alias Choman and his team of young men
and women to operate at the former seat of government.

In the
documentary Joy News established the presence of the group operating
illegally at the former seat of government. The state did not contest
this, except to say that the people were “a group of young men and
women, dressed up in white shirts and black suits, converging at the
Castle, Osu, in the belief that jobs will be found for them.”

At a news conference in March this year, Information Minister Kojo
Oppong Nkrumah indicated that the leader of the De-Eye Group, Nana
Wireko Addo, had been appointed to retrieve some vehicles from
appointees of the Mahama administration, finished the job in 2018 but
decided to operate his own business from the Castle.

“After the completion of the work of the task force in August 2018,
he subsequently converted the office allocated to him into a private
business office for the stated purposes of his company,” Mr.
Oppong-Nkrumah said. Mr. Oppong Nkrumah said the situation was handled
immediately it was discovered.
“But it was quickly dealt with in October 2018 when he was evicted from
the premises by a joint operation involving personnel of the National
Security Secretariat and the Ghana Police Service,” he said.

But
there are questions. Who was sanctioned for the presence of the people
at the state facility? The government does not talk about who took
responsibility and whether anyone has been sanctioned for allowing an
unregistered security company to run from the Osu Castle. Speaking on
the Joy News analysis show Newsfile in March this year, private legal
practitioner Ace Ankomah said the eviction was not enough. For him, the
state should have ensured the arrest of the people.

“Eviction means you can go, go and sin no more. But these guys, on the
face of it, are as guilty as sin. But they’re evicted and they have the
temerity, impudence, audacity to return to the prime real estate – the
old slave fort – and then they have to be re-evicted. You see, the law
just does not work in this country,” Mr. Ankomah said.

But this is critical because in the government’s own statement signed
and read by Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah after the
broadcast of the documentary there people had no permission to operate
at the state facility. He said: “Admittedly, this should not have been
allowed to happen in the first place.”

The group also admitted on
its website that it was undertaking security training. Their trainers
were ex-military men. It’s motto was “Vigilance and Protection”. JoyNews
checks revealed that the group had no license to undertake security
training or operations, a situation lawyer Ace Ankomah said was
criminal.

Former GFA spokesperson Randy Abbey believes someone must take responsibility for the operation of the group at the castle.

“Is anybody being held responsible? So now the focus is on are they
militia, do they have a disposition to violence? They’re not. But the
truth of the matter is that, look, if you have a situation where there’s
a running battle between a group and the national security, and on
three occasions the national security is unable to kick them out and
that it had to a reinforcement – a joint effort – it cannot be just a
group of some idle unemployed young men and women.

But in all this the narrative by the government has been about
nomenclature, how the people should be called – vigilante or militia -,
but very silent on the prosecution of the group or sanction for whoever
was responsible for the occupation of the group at the Castle.